About 1,000 "taxpayers" making over $1 million a year failed to even file returns at least once, 2017-2021.

You can still itemize if you want to.   The change that was made was to make the standard deduction amount higher.  If you opted to take the standard deduction its because it was giving you a bigger deduction than itemizing would have.   So its not like you lost money.   You just had an easier time filling out your taxes.

And thats not a bad thing, right?

The real con from the tax changes was the fact that most middle class people didnt get much if any kind of tax cut.  That went largely to people at the top - much like when Bush cut taxes.   And in both cases the salespitch to the naive public was the impact would be the other way around.        SO while taxes are easier to file for most people now....the bottom line on their bank account is mostly a wash.

Thanks, PJ.  We had always itemized but this year is different, very few deductions, so the Standard may be our way to go.  And not have to pay a tax preparer!

You can still itemize if you want to.

Even PJ knows that the taxpayer can take the higher amount of either the std deduction or itemize. Nobody was penalized.

And cpa kevin, I provided the tax rates; where are your tax rates that show they went up?  Cpa kevin lies again.  No wonder he had to teach children how to tie their shoes.

The real con from the tax changes was the fact that most middle class people didnt get much if any kind of tax cut

See below.   It makes math sense that the top 1% who pay the most in taxes will get biggest $ cut.

In 2017, 143.3 million taxpayers reported earning $10.9 trillion in adjusted gross income and paid $1.6 trillion in individual income taxes. The share of reported income earned by the top 1 percent of taxpayers rose to 21 percent, from 19.7 percent in 2016. Their share of federal individual income taxes rose to 38.5 percent, from to 37.3 percent in 2016.

https://thehill.com/opinion/finance/584190-irs-data-prove-trump-tax-cuts-benefited-middle-working-class-americans-most/

PJ left out an important aspect when he said "you can still itemize." That aspect is that you can't deduct about 4/5 of the expenses you used to be able to claim. So yes, you can itemize...but there's no point any more, for most taxpayers. AND THE WHOLE POINT OF ITEMIZING WAS TO REDUCE YOUR TAX LIABILITY. So your tax bill is higher now if you itemized before.

The standard deduction increase makes up for that for many people. But for many people, it doesn't...and they're paying much higher taxes. Probably the largest population affected is those with large home mortgages.

AND..."simplification" wasn't a good thing if that simplification was to remove dozens of ways to reduce your tax bill...was it?

One more time.

The one negative change was the $10k limit on SALT deductions.  (I remember once cpa kevin didn't know what this was ).  But perhaps the states with the highest taxes should should look at their expenses.

Under the old system if a couple had $10,000 in deductable expenses they would itemize.  Under the new system if a couple has $10,000 in deductable expenses they could now take $27+k as a standard deduction.  They are $17k+ ahead & the rates are lower.

If a couple had $50,000 in deductable expenses, they could take the itemized deduction instead of the std deduction.

Simple choice.  

Sometimes you can't fix stupid 

No, you can't. Stupid Tommie-poo remains stupid.

His numbers are still comically incorrect, but I won't bother to school and refute him this time. I just want to laugh at his "the one negative change" statement.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAA

He says I am wrong because cpa Kevin doesn't understand them. Still waiting for cpa Kevin to show where rates have gone up. 

PJ is totally right on that.  

I get the independent contractor idea as well.  That would have allowed your husband to get 1099's for his income and you could deduct ALL expenses against that income on schedule C.  

Please don't use CPA and Kevin in the same sentence, even if it is being sarcastic.  You are insulting all the legit CPAs out there....

No...he's incorrect. If you lost the ability to take a sizable itemized deduction--because that deduction was no longer allowed--you would have lost money if that deduction amounted to more than the increase in the standard deduction.

The net gain for taking an itemized deduction or deductions was the difference between that deduction (total) and the standard deduction. You only opted to itemize if that amount was larger than the standard deduction. There are two reasons why very few people itemize now: one, because most formerly deductible expenses are no longer allowed, and two, because the standard deduction is now larger, meaning that the total of whatever itemized deductions a taxpayer has would have to be that much larger to make it make sense to itemize. It's a double whammy to itemizing.

You're incorrect about the independent contractor idea. If he elected to work as an independent contractor (assuming his former employer agreed in the first place), his tools and supplies would now have become business expenses and listed on his Schedule C rather than deductions listed on his 1040 (Schedule A). There are important differences between business expenses and personal deductions from income. I won't go into all of them here, but suffice it to say that there are many reasons why a person may not elect to become a Schedule C filer. (One would be the inability to reduce your business's income below zero for tax purposes if you had a large expense, such as...buying tools or equipment. This would be particularly hurtful if you had more than one income-producing activity.)

The point being, prior to 2018, this was an option. Trump took away that option. It's true that that option would make sense for fewer taxpayers now. But the primary reason for that isn't the increase in the standard deduction--though it is a reason--it's that so many previous common deductions, such as mortgage interest, are no longer allowed.